Chapter Five of The Noble Liar is entitled “Auntie the Apostate: Losing Her Religion” . It is incredibly insightful and helpful. The following is a summary with some of the best quotes. Read and think about this. We have moved from the BBC broadcasting CS Lewis during a time of crisis, to the BBC now promoting the secular prophet, Richard Dawkins. It has not been a change for the better.
Auntie the Apostate; Losing Her Religion
The Christian Foundations of the BBC
John Reith, the first director-general of the BBC was born in 1889. He was the son of a Presbyterian minister and throughout his long life (he died in 1971) he never publicly deviated from support for a conventional Christian morality, and he carried the same moral high-mindedness into his work at the BBC. Reith had a vision of the BBC as fulfilling a higher public purpose and ensured that broadcasting in the UK took a quite different trajectory than in other countries.
He wanted the BBC to be seen as an instrument of moral improvement rather than being dominated by commercial concerns. The BBC’s earliest corporate character was to be “serious minded, consciously aligned with traditional Christian morality and conscious also obvious obligation to be fair.” (P.121).
C S Lewis
It is always difficult to tell the truth in a balanced way– especially when you are at war, as Britain was during the Second World War. Overall the BBC came through the Second World War with its reputation greatly enhanced. During that period they broadcast a series of remarkable talks by CS Lewis. There were 33 short talks broadcast in 1942, 1943 and 1944. These were published in book form in 1952 as Mere Christianity – probably one of the greatest Christian books ever written. It is impossible to conceive of the BBC allowing such a production today.
Whilst the BBC were happy to broadcast these talks, some of Lewis’s contemporaries in Oxford were not. They regarded him as some kind of academic heretic for believing in God. In 1951 one don voted against Lewis been granted the prestigious poetry chair precisely because he had written works of popular theology. Lewis lost by 194 to 173.
The Decline of Christianity in the UK
Why there was a decline of Christianity in the UK after the 1950s is a question of great importance and great dispute. Certainly the horrors of the first and Second World War are part of the answer. “The power to destroy the world itself was, seemingly, now in human hands; when once mankind was taught to fear God, now it learned to fear itself.”(Page 131).
After the Second World War, the welfare state was established largely thanks to the efforts of the Archbishop of Canterbury, William Temple. His book Christianity and Social Order published in 1942 sold more than 150,000 copies and had a profound impact upon William Beveridge, himself a Christian.
“In his book Temple advocated universal healthcare, education for all, decent social housing and improved working conditions– the core program, in fact, of the new government. It would be an exaggeration to claim Temple as the sole author of the welfare state, but it is also wrong that he, and the Christian tradition that he represents, should be written out of the script altogether, which has often been his fate at the hands of contemporary writers. It is fair to say that the welfare state, with its level of fairness and the recognition of the worth of each individual regardless of station in life, is the natural offspring of Christian teaching; a society which looks after the poor is a society moulded by a philosophy quite different from naked capitalism.”(Page 132).
The church had been the major provider of welfare services, now it was the state. Furthermore the church, especially the Anglican, had been identified as the Tory party at prayer. Over the second half of the 20th century the Church of England seemed at times to be a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Labour Party. It is fascinating that in today’s culture the bishops are largely of one political mind.
The Revolution from Within
The Labour Party was in its foundations far more influenced by Christianity that it was by Marxism. But by the 1950s and 1960s Communism was both fashionable and influential.
‘The fact that Soviet Communism was also explicitly atheist hastened the decline of Christian influence within Labour”(Page 136).
The BBC as a public corporation, was an ideal vehicle for those who sought to revolutionise society.” It was the German student revolutionary Rudi Dutschke who coined the phrase ‘the long march through the institutions’ as a way of achieving revolution from within.” (Page 137). From the 1960s onwards a cohort of left-wing politicians, teachers, social workers, lawyers and journalists gained entry and slowly but surely ascended through the ranks. If you’re going to change the world you need to change minds and so you needn’t to control the media. The BBC was right for takeover.
“By the 1990s through the natural processes of generational change, the whole institution was firmly in the hands of the 1960s generation. The infiltration was complete and the radicals were snuggly ensconced in the higher echelons of the Corporation, able to ensure that all its output conformed to correct thought. Today, what was once transgressive has become mainstream – for the radicals are never satisfied and are still determined to sweep away what little remains of the old morality.” (Page 138). Aitken goes on to describe how this applies with the example of euthanasia and discusses the significance of the Lady Chatterley’s Lover trial.
“The abandonment of the idea of an objective morality– that is one that claims there are moral laws that are true and universal which is Lewis’s ‘natural law’ – follows logically from an atheistic perspective. In a world without God who is to decide right and wrong? The Christian churches belief that the moral law comes from God– and thus must be obeyed– makes no sense at all to an atheist. Within the BBC, any idea of an objective morality has been jettisoned to be replaced by a protean morality that is built on the shifting sands of fashionable opinion and is constantly changing its ground.”(Page 144).
Aitken then goes on to discuss the way that the Church of England also gave in to the pressures of social liberalism. “The C of E has become painfully anxious to be non- judgemental, knowing that to do otherwise is to invite the condemnation of social liberals. And it is in this respect that the role of the BBC matters.” (Page 146). I would suggest that Aitken is wrong here. It is not that the C of E is not non-judgemental – it is very judgemental on some issues – it is just that it shares the same judgements as the new Establishment. In an important insight Aitken goes on to observe:
“The BBC has wholeheartedly thrown its lot in with the liberal reformers; there has been no ‘impartiality’ on any of the big moral issues of the past half century. In every instance, the socially conservative argument has been depicted as callous, reactionary and dogmatic. Any counter argument to the prevailing liberal consensus is now ignored altogether: social conservative voices are conspicuous by their absence on mainstream current affairs programmes.” (Page 147).
Pornography
As an example of this Aitken cites pornography. Again his insights here are important.
“If it is a victory for ‘the humanitarian forces of English liberalism’ that all now have access to pornography, is that a wholly beneficial outcome?” (Page 147).
“The evidence is overwhelming that pornography causes a great deal of harm, but the BBC keeps quiet. Why? “The reason for the deafening silence is that social liberalism has now achieved an intellectual hegemony among media professionals as it has in both the law and education. It seems that there must not be a debate on this matter, because to do so would be to challenge something, which, in the view of prominent liberals like Geoffrey Robertson, underpins the whole edifice of social liberalism. Perhaps if we started to question the wisdom of permitting pornography, other assumptions which are foundational to the new liberal order might also unravel?” (Page 149).
Auntie Hates The Family
Aitken now talks about how the BBC also largely ignores the evidence about the harm caused by divorce and the breakup of the traditional family. He cites the opinion of the most senior family judge in England and Wales, Sir James Munby, who in May 2018 made a speech at the University of Liverpool in which he stated that
“In contemporary Britain the family takes an almost infinite variety of forms. Children live in households where their parents may be married or unmarried. They may be brought up by single parent, by two parents or even by three parents…..Many adults and children, whether through choice or circumstance, live in families more or less removed from what, until comparatively recently, would have been recognized as the typical nuclear family. This, I stress, is not merely the reality; it is, I believe, a reality which we should welcome and applaud.” (Page 153).
If a speech had been made advocating the traditional view of marriage and the family then the BBC would have given it a great deal of critical attention. But the BBC ignored it. And they continue to ignore the connection between the growing unhappiness of Britain’s children and the breakdown of the family. Ideology trumps humanity.
“Liberal social policies, like those pursued in Britain for the past half century, come with a high price tag – and the people who have paid it are the nations children.”(Page 155).
The God Delusion
60 years after the BBC produced CS Lewis they returned to another Oxford man, Richard Dawkins, who had just written The God Delusion
“The BBC attached enormous importance to this book and its author was repeatedly, and respectfully, interviewed on all the main BBC outlets on radio and television. The BBC reacted as though Prof Dawkins, a geneticist, really had nailed the essence of the argument and settled the matter once and for all.”(Page 156.)
Aitken notes that despite Prof Dawkins giving his own version of the 10 Commandments which includes treating a fellow human being faithfully, he has been divorced three times!
The BBC assiduously promoted to The God Delusion. “Partly thanks to the BBC’s heady sponsorship, The God Delusion became a global phenomenon which– given its intellectual mediocrity– takes some explaining. “ (Page 159). But of course they gave little or no publicity to those of us who challenged Dawkins. That would have been blasphemy!
On Writing the Dawkins Letters
The Noble Lie
“The noble lie at the heart of this new morality is that we can, as individuals and as a society, dispense with an objective moral code without harmful consequences.” (Page 161).
“The result of our national, transgressive moral revolution is now apparent: a horribly diminished sense of security for millions of children and it coarsening and debasement of our attitudes to sex. Plus a rise in mental illness across the population. In addition, there has been a profound change in the value we put on human life itself.
It is often said that contemporary Britain is a post-Christian country; if so, the ills which afflict the nation today cannot be laid at the door of the old belief system. This country of unhappy children and uncertain adults– this is the world social liberal values have conjured into being.
The BBC which, once upon a time, understood its responsibilities differently and promoted a straightforward Christian view of the world, has been the midwife to this transformation; in fact, more than that with midwife– an active agent of change agitating for the new morality. And, the change having been successfully realised – with permissive liberal values now triumphant – the BBC no longer even allows a social conservative challenge to the new dispensation. Any claim by the Corporation, to be ‘impartial’ in this debate is a lie.” (Page 163).
That is the sad truth.
The BBC and Christianity in Scotland
Finally here is my personal story about the BBC and religion. I always wondered wby there were so few evangelicals on BBC Scotland. Then one day I was told the truth – that the person responsible was a C of S minister (a liberal) whose policy was to ensure that evangelicals did not get on, or if they did they were to be very tightly controlled. This was his policy- not the BBCs. In other words, as has so often happened, the bureaucracy of the C of S was hindering the Gospel. It is only with the development of other forms of communication that the BBC’s almost monopoly on religious broadcasting has been challenged – and a much friendlier environment has been established. Things in Scotland are much better in this regard than they were 25 years ago.
I was once asked to do an Easter programme with Anna Magnusson. We had a half hour recorded conversation in a graveyard in Edinburgh discussing resurrection (which I believed in, she didn’t). The producer contacted me afterwards and said that it was great radio and she loved it. However her bosses would not allow her to put it out as it was. Why? Because it lacked balance! Apparently having two people with opposite points of view was not ‘BBC balance’. So they called in a liberal clergyman who did not believe in the Resurrection and my part was reduced from 15 minutes to around 8. I understand absolutely what Aitken is saying. I have experienced it.
Especially interesting when you read this in parallel with trying to find Christian TV programmes on the BBC this Easter.
This is not a surprise, but the fact it comes from a BBC insider is shocking. The idea of impartiality does not exist. We are being slowly and consistently drip fed non Christian ideas and values. This would be sad in a commercial company, but this is a public service broadcaster. Yet it does show extreme partiality and this for nearly all the time. I say this, as a generality, but there are some great exceptions where the journalist does manage to be fair to all sides of the argument; sadly these folk are few and far between.
Thanks for this, seems like an amazing and important book.
Maybe sense check again as there are a few sentences with big enough typos that they don’t make sense.
E.g. “Reef had a vision of the BBC is fulfilling a higher public purpose and insured that broadcasting in the UK for the quite different trajectory than in other countries.”
“Why there was a decline of Christianity in the UK after the 1950s is a question of great importance and great dispute. ”
I think it’s a question that it is important to reject. Do I need to spell out why the “important” question is wrong? See 1 Chronicles 21 and 2 Samuel 24 and John 3:8.
Except these passages don’t say anything about the question. You might think that the question of why Christianity has declined here is irrelevant and to be rejected. I don’t. My aim is to communicate the Gospel and in order to do so I seek to understand the culture into which I am seeking to bring it.
Are you arguing for a Christian monopoly on the BBC, I thought you believed in a diversity of views?
I noticed you don’t mention Lord Reith’s pro-Nazi views and that he did everything he could to keep Churchill and other anti-appeasers off the radio. In 1933 Lord Reath said “the Nazis will clean things up and put Germany on the way to being a real power in Europe again.” After the Night of the Long Knives, Reith wrote “I really admire the way Hitler has cleaned up what looked like an incipient revolt. I really admire the drastic actions taken, which were obviously badly needed.” Even after Czechoslovakia was invaded by the Nazis in 1939 he wrote: “Hitler continues his magnificent efficiency.”
Reith also expressed admiration for Benito Mussolini.[28][30] Reith’s daughter, Marista Leishman, wrote that her father in the 1930s did everything possible to keep Winston Churchill and other anti-appeasement Conservatives off the airwaves.
No I’m not arguing for a Christian monopoly on the BBC. That should be obvious from the article. I am arguing against a secular humanist monopoly and asking for more diversity. Hitler fooled a lot of people!
I accidently listened to BBC Radio Scotland on Good Friday at 6.30am. The programme was entitled Good Friday: Tree of Life. It purported to be an examination of the suffering of Jesus as rooted in the Earth. The contributers had been through difficult experiences and had found relief, peace, etc. in nature (which I appreciate) but they weaved into their story the “story” of Christ’s suffering and linked that to their understanding which was far removed from the New Testament account of the suffering of Jesus. The programme was led by Linden Bicket, Teaching Fellow in the School of Divinity in New College, at the University of Edinburgh. The whole was an indication of how far our society has moved from the faith of biblical Christianity that was the basis of the BBC in its earliest days.
And in the programme preceding (which started at 6am) Anna Magnusson called a New Testament a book of imagination ….
The children of the 50s had parents of the 30s, when Communism and scepticism were already flourishing, as Lewis found out – and indeed was one himself, until God moved him. And they were children of the Great War generation, who God knows had plenty of fuel for doubt, and parents of their own for whom Church had mainly been a social exercise – the ancestor of “virtue signalling”. One could trace it back over all generations, not least the Reformation when every man was given permission to be his own Pope and teacher, and plenty took it to places Luther never intended.
Now the liberals promote “freedom” from morality, and the “conservatives” buy shares in the companies exploiting it – and then blame the victims for their moral turpitude and “weakness”.
That’s the ground we’re given to plough: it’s nothing new (think the “civilised” Roman empire!) and it’s as thankless as task as my actual garden in an era when the long-established “driest place in England” (actually about 5 miles away) has now graduated to the sort of annual drought, starting earlier every year if we get rain in the winter at all, that makes some politicians’ blather about “we can always grow potatoes like we did in the war” look like a pretty hollow boast. Attribute it as you please to gay weddings or climate change, but the observed happenings are apparent to everyone who grows food, as the moral climate changes are to you.
All we can do is keep on praying and working, as Christians always have, and trust the Lord that “the gates of Hell” will indeed give way in the end – as many Christians will be celebrating tonight!
God’s blessing on your Easter, and that of all here.
Bless you David.
Richard Dawkins and his God Delusion is just the tip of the iceberg.
As one generation of Christians is dying, the new generation isn’t being educated and rewarded with His words.
Each and every month there is more and more evidence that Christianity is most definitely in decline and this needs to be addressed by every Christian on this planet.
Our voices need to be raised.
Our values and our faith in Him is under constant attack, yet many Christians do little or nothing to aid in expanding or growing Christian numbers or Christianity.
He died for us whilst asking us to spread and share in Him. To teach the gospel to the masses.
We have since become selfish, self-centered and obsessed with our own prayer and in our own asking of Him, rather than in doing His work.
He didn’t ask us to be silent.
He didn’t ask us to be in continuous prayer.
He taught us what to say.
He gave us a voice and asked us to use it in His name.
That was His calling to all Christians.
We have failed as individuals in His clear calling to each of us.
It is now every Christians calling to help resurrect Christianity.
To save Christianity. To save Him, His words, His life.
According to The Telegraph, Christianity is in a “dramatic decline’, with Atheism and Islam on the rise.
We don’t need to read this in newspapers or listen to it on TV to believe it.
We can see it with our own eyes happening in our societies.
He managed to start a movement as a lone man on a mission of God with little more than word of mouth passed from individual to individual.
Yet here we are with each of us with the capability to do so much more and to reach so many more than He could.
We live in an age where we have the technology in our own homes, and in our pockets, that can be used to reach and teach the gospel to millions/billions of people around the world, yet the majority of Christians are far too silent in their own personal worlds of solitary and silent prayer.
We have become far too busy in continuously asking for His help rather than being busy in actively helping to share and spread His word and keep Him alive for future generations.
The decline in Christianity falls at the feet of every Christian who failed to take up His calling in spreading His word.
The decline in Christianity falls at the feet of every Christian who fails to use their voice and knowledge of Him to educate others and share in Him.
We are reported to have more than 2.2 Billion Christians on this planet who should be doing the same because that is what each and every on of them was called to do.
Is it too late to resurrect Christianity?
I don’t know but i am one who is willing to start.